Thriving in the presidency

Jennifer Greenstein Altmann

After nearly one year at the helm,
Tilghman finds her job consuming -- and
exhilarating

President Tilghman in a rare
moment of repose.

Princeton NJ -- In Shirley M. Tilghman's first year
as president of Princeton University, she could be found
discussing new uses for computers with 100 members of the
Office of Information Technology, teasing retiring
Humanities Council Chair Alexander Nehamas at a reception in
his honor, listening to a graduate student defend his thesis
in molecular biology and examining crisis management at a
con-ference convened by Gov. James McGreevey about critical
infrastructures. And that was just during one week in
April.

Those events are typical of the enormous range of
subjects with which Tilghman is involved as president. Her
jam-packed schedule (see "A day in the life") fills each of
her days with the same exhilaration that she found in
science.

"The biggest surprise is how much I love the job," said
Tilghman in an interview looking back on her first year in
office. "I spent the first 25 years of my professional life
saying that nothing could be more fun than science. But I
have now had to revise that statement, because I have found
something that is just as exciting and challenging and
rewarding, and that gives me personal satisfaction to the
same extent as what I was doing as a professor."

Tilghman was selected last May as Princeton's 19th
president after serving on the molecular biology faculty
since 1986. Her first year has been marked by some key
accomplishments. She drew several major academic
heavyweights to the Princeton faculty. She assembled her new
leadership team, appointing Amy Gutmann as provost and
filling several other top-level positions. She worked to
attract a $30 million donation from Meg Whitman '77 for the
new residential college and a $60 million donation from
Peter Lewis '55 for a new science library. And just as she
was start-ing her first academic year, she thoughtfully
responded to the enormous and unanticipated challenge of the
Sept. 11 tragedy and the anthrax scare.

She also took actions that demonstrated her
administration's priorities. She accelerated the timetable
for raising the wages of the University's lower paid
workers, and she created a task force to develop a long-term
strategy to attract and retain talented women faculty in the
natural sciences and engineering.

A day in the life

Princeton NJ --
President Tilghman's typical day is filled
with a broad range of activities involving
a wide variety of people. Here is her
schedule for Thursday, April
18.

8:30 a.m.
Gives an 80-minute lecture to the 240
students in "Introduction to Cellular and
Molecular Biology"

10 a.m.
Meets with Provost Amy
Gutmann

11 a.m.
Makes phone calls and answers
e-mails

11:30 a.m.
Delivers welcoming remarks at a
Building Services luncheon, which honored
the 235 employees who provide janitorial
and other support services at
Princeton

Noon
Attends meeting of the Academic
Planning Group, which assembles weekly to
review issues related to academic
life

1:30 p.m.
Goes to Small World Coffee with James
Trussell, acting dean of the Woodrow
Wilson School

2 p.m.
Holds office hours for students

3 p.m.
Makes a phone call to a candidate for a
dean's position

3:30 p.m.
Meets with a faculty delegation to discuss
a candidate for recruitment

7 p.m.
Hosts a buffet dinner at Lowrie House for
the participants in a scientific symposium
and their families

She has been highly visible outside the University, meeting
with high school students in Washington, D.C., Chicago and
Los Angeles to talk about the excitement of science. At Los
Angeles' King-Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and
Science, students peppered Tilghman with questions about the
links between genes and diseases. One student said
Tilghman's visit had prompted her to want to learn more
about DNA and other genetic issues.

Tilghman's visits with alumni in nine U.S. cities
garnered huge turnouts: 800 alumni in San Francisco, 300 in
St. Louis, 650 in Philadelphia and 1,000 in New York City.
"The outpouring of support was incredible," said Margaret
Miller, director of the Alumni Council. "Alumni are very
enthusiastic about her and excited about the things she's
already accomplished."

Tilghman also is beginning to play a role in educational
issues in New Jersey. McGreevey selected her to co-chair
Prosperity New Jersey, which will work to improve the
relationship of the state's educational institutions with
business, state government and local communities.

Staying current with science

In addition to carrying out her duties as president,
Tilghman has spent Fridays during the last academic year at
her laboratory, meeting with students and postdoctoral
fellows to review their research and suggest new directions.
And she co-taught an introductory molecular biology course
for 240 undergraduates (see "For Tilghman, there's a science
to the presidency" on page 5).

She also has engaged students in less formal settings,
chatting with a couple of dozen at an informal breakfast at
Lowrie House, holding open office hours about once a week
and sharing Thanksgiving dinner with several international
students, along with family members and some friends. She
has eaten lunch at every residential college, dined at
eating clubs, taken in her share of lacrosse and basketball
games and even made a surprise appearance at the
Katzenjammers' quadrennial jamboree this fall. "It appealed
to the ham in me," Tilghman said.

"She's been on the move seven days a week, right from the
moment that she took over the presidency," said Thomas
Wright, the University's vice president and secretary. "She
seems to be tireless."

Last summer she made it a priority to meet with large
numbers of staff and faculty members in senior and junior
positions. "I wanted to find out what they were working on,
what they thought needed improvement and what their
aspirations were for their departments," Tilghman said.

Cultivating faculty

One of her main concerns in the coming years will be
"making sure that young scholars are allowed to blossom and
helped to blossom here. Mentoring young faculty is a very
high priority for me," she said.

Attracting prominent scholars to the faculty, including
Anthony Appiah, Cornel West, Chang-rae Lee, Marina Brownlee
and Daphne Brooks, was one of the highlights of her first
year, Tilghman said. "Not only are they great scholars, but
they are people who have the capacity to come and be true
presences on the campus and make a difference," she said.
"They will make our extraordinary faculty even better."

The president said she was surprised that she has spent
as much time retaining current faculty as attracting new
faculty. "We're a target because we have such an exceptional
faculty," she said. "We need to be aggressive in our efforts
to hold on to them and make sure that conditions to work
here are truly optimal."

Tilghman also has singled out Princeton's staff as "a
very high priority" for her administration. "We often say
how proud we are that we offer the finest undergraduate
education, and we often point to academic departments as the
best in the world," she said. "I think we should be able to
point to our staff and say it is the best staff in the
country, and that this is the best-run university in the
country. It's terribly important that people see Princeton
as a terrific place to work." (For more of Tilghman's
remarks about the staff and other topics, see "Big or
small," page 5.)

A good deal of Tilghman's time this year was devoted to
appointing a senior vice president for administration, a
vice president for development and a general counsel, as
well as replacing several deans. Robert Rawson Jr., chair of
the Board of Trustees' Executive Committee, said she has
assembled a strong team of administrators. "Shirley has laid
the groundwork for substantial progress in the years ahead,"
he said.

Easygoing and accessible

Many who have interacted with her said that Tilghman's
leadership style is easygoing and accessible. Oscar Smith
Sr., the Dining Services unit manager of the Center for
Jewish Life, found Tilghman friendly and down to earth when
she joined students at the center for a Shabbat dinner in
February.

"I was elated to have the opportunity to meet her," Smith
said. "Before she left, she came to the kitchen. I thought
that was really nice, that she took some time before she
left to tell the workers that she enjoyed the meal."

"She's a very approachable president," said Anthony
Grafton, the Henry Putnam University Professor of History.
"You see her in Small World getting her coffee."

Tilghman also met with dozens of student groups during
the year. She accepted an invitation from junior Abby
Corson-Rikert to have dinner at the Brown Co-op, a kitchen
and dining room on the second floor of Brown Hall where 25
students share cooking duties. "She was very engaging, and
seemed interested in what we had to say," said
Corson-Rikert.

Junior Robert Accordino has developed a friendship with
Tilghman that started when he sent her an e-mail at the
beginning of the school year. She attended the Tigertones
benefit concert he organized at Lincoln Center last November
-- "she was cheering in the second row!" -- and so enjoyed a
student performance of "The Magic Flute" in which he starred
as Papageno that she has a photograph of him and the other
lead performers hanging over her desk. "What has struck me
is that she's so interested in student life issues," he
said. "She's made Princeton feel warmer and smaller than it
ever did."

And she's been eager to hear new ideas and suggestions
from members of the University community. Last fall she
inaugurated the President's Lecture Series, which brings
together faculty members from different disciplines to learn
about each other's work, at the suggestion of Professor of
Economics Alan Krueger.

"She's extremely responsive, and she's a very good
listener," said Krueger, who sent her a memo outlining the
idea last summer. "She has really assumed the role very well
and very quickly, and energized the University."

Joe Kochan '02, who got to know Tilghman when he served
as president of the Undergraduate Student Government, said
she shows a keen interest in other people's views. "I was
always amazed at how willing the president was to consider
everything that was being said -- and not just out of
politeness or duty, but to really take in and process what
people were telling her, and then to make a connection
between all the issues and how they play out on campus," he
said.

Her personal touch mattered a great deal this year when
it came to faculty recruitment. "I think it's one of the
most valuable things I can do for the University -- help the
faculty recruit -- so I never turn down a request to do
that," Tilghman said. "Often one phone call (from the
president) saying, 'We really want you to come' can make a
difference."

Memorable moments

One of the memorable moments this year for Tilghman was
the gift of $30 million toward the construction of a new
residential college from Meg Whitman, president and chief
executive officer of eBay Inc.

"Having an alumna who has been so successful so young be
willing to give back at that level -- and having the first
big new thing of my administration named after a woman --
was just an incredible experience," Tilghman said.

Some of the other highlights from her first year were
special moments for the whole campus. Her installation last
fall as president and the party afterward on Weaver Track
and Field Stadium were "utterly magical," she said.
Listening to Toni Morrison "speak to the dead" at the
memorial service on Cannon Green a few days after Sept. 11
"was a moment that I'll never forget," said Tilghman.

And she recalled the way she felt at last year's P-rade,
that pageant of Princeton alumni from the old guard to the
senior class. "The president has this incredible perspective
of being on a reviewing stand and seeing the generations go
by, and it's absolutely moving," Tilghman said.

As she gets ready to watch the first seniors of her
administration walk through FitzRandolph Gate at
commencement, Tilghman is thinking about what she can
accomplish in the future for Princeton. "Now that I have
completed the important job of recruiting eight new members
of the senior administration, we are ready to begin the
careful process of outlining our goals for the future," she
said.

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